Estadio Nacional de Chile
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The Estadio Nacional de Chile, national stadium of Chile, in the comuna (municipality) of Ñuñoa in Santiago, Chile. It is the largest stadium in Chile with an official capacity of 76,500, and is part of a large sporting complex which also features a tennis court, a baseball field, swimming pools, and a modern gymnasium.
Construction began in February of 1937 and it was inaugurated on December 3, 1938. The architecture was taken from the Olympic Stadium, Berlin, Germany. The stadium is notorious as a concentration camp under the military regime ruling from 1973.
History
It is used mostly for football matches and was one of the four venues of the 1962 World Cup, hosting the opening game, a quarterfinal, a semifinal, the third-place match, and the final. As such, it was the scene of the Chile national team's greatest-ever accomplishment, the 1-0 victory over Yugoslavia for third place on 16 June 1962. Today, the Estadio Nacional serves as the home field for both the national team and first-division club Universidad de Chile. It also holds some big non-sporting events such as political celebrations or charity spectacles.
Use as Concentration Camp
During the Chilean coup of 1973 it was used as a concentration camp holding 40,000 prisoners, between September and November of that year. The field and gallery were used to hold male prisoners, while female prisoners were held in the swimming pool changing rooms and associated buildings. Locker rooms and corridors were used to torture and murder prisoners, while interrorgations were carried out in the velodrome. Its most famous victim was the Chilean folk singer and political activist Victor Jara. A documentary film, Estadio Nacional has been made about the use of the stadium as a concentration camp.|- style="text-align: center;"
References
- [Comisión Nacional sobre Prisión Política y Tortura] (in Spanish)
- [National Commission on Political Prison and Tortures] (Google translation of above)
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